


Not-so-great Plan of The Great Trickster.

by panhomarek



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Awesome Darcy Lewis, Children abuse, Community: avengerkink, Gen, Loki Gets a Hug, Loki is Not Amused, Post-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-03
Updated: 2015-06-03
Packaged: 2018-04-02 18:14:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4069720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/panhomarek/pseuds/panhomarek
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt : http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/20598.html?thread=50758518#t50758518</p>
<p>Loki does something that he regrets but for once, he manages to do something right. Even if he didn't plan for it to happen. </p>
<p>The work includes : awesome nanny!Darcy, a little bit lost but compassionate Loki and hurt kids!Avengers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not-so-great Plan of The Great Trickster.

**Author's Note:**

> I think I'm sorry for that. I went lightly at the start but then - angst is angst. I hope you'll enjoy it! Sometime soon I might put it on AO3, I'll leave the link to it somewhere. This fill has no beta. 
> 
> Enjoy! :D

Well, he had to admit it – just this once – that it all started because he was jealous. If he wasn’t already morphing into blue monster he suspected, he would become as green as the Wicked Witch of the West. He saw the movies, and had read the books, thank you very much. 

It all came down to that fucking robot and the attention he got. 

Big things, destroying one city! He, Loki, was a constant thread for the whole Earth! And how much media time he got? 

He wasn’t even on the front page with his trick and attack anymore! And Avengers?

They did it to themselves – it was their fault, they provoked him. Last time when he appeared in the middle of central park? They send S.H.I.E.L.D. TEAM for him. Not even the super heroes. Not even the assassin couple! A team of mere humans! 

Loki was not amused. 

So he came up with a plan – not to take over the Earth, that would take a little bit much planning than watching a super nanny on TV – but to make Avengers pay for what they had done to him. 

And honestly, he should have been wiser about this. He should have known that a bunch of heroes that assembled to save the world was more dysfunctional than they showed. 

The spell was easy. The trap was perfect. The outcome? 

Well… 

 

*   
“It’s all right, Stark, it’s all right,” he mutters. “I’ve got you now.” 

He holds little – about seven years Anthony Stark in his arms, hugging him tightly to his chest. The kid is still crying and helplessly clenching his little hands on leather straps of Loki’s outfit. 

“I need to find the others, Tony,” he says after a while. “They are as scared as you are.” 

There is no response for a while and Loki starts to honestly doubt that he can pull this off. That he can fix it. But then Tony raises his head – his eyes are red and puffy, his cheeks covered with salt and his nose, gosh, Loki would need to find some wipes before he leaves. 

“Others?” Little Tony asks and it hits Loki how innocently he sounds. 

“Yes,” Loki says, trying to make his voice as soft as he can. “Others. I need to find six more of you, bring you back together and then fix this mess. And try to forget…”

Tony hits him hard in the chest – or at least as hard as a human child can. Then he stops crying and start wriggling, trying to get out of his hold. Loki looks at him with confusion. 

“What happened?” 

“You!” Little Tony says, his voice accusatory, almost breaking at the end. Tony’s chin is shaking and all Loki can do is whisper in his mind a mantra of “No. No, no, no don’t start crying again Stark!” 

“I knew you’ll be the same! They are all the same! Even Jarvis is!” Tony sniffs and then tears are rolling on his cheeks again. But this time there’s more hurt in his eyes, as well as determination. He brings his hands to his face and tries to stop crying. Tries and fails.   
Loki exhales slowly. 

“Look at me child,” he says and he does it as a good villain should. Tony freezes, shocked, and looks at him. Loki smiles. “I am not like the others you’ve met. I can assure you of that.” 

“Yeah?” 

And Loki sees it – sees how little it would take to turn that little Tony into a villain instead of a hero. And for a moment he is tempted to do just that. To collect them all and rise them, manipulate them to become the worst plague the Universe has seen. They have the potential and he has all the means to do it. 

Then, he thinks better of this. 

His own memories hit him and he hugs little Tony Stark to his chest. The kid doesn’t protest, instead, hugs him back. And Loki blinks back the tears. 

Would he be different, if he had someone like Jarvis back in Asgard? Or would it turn him even crazier in the end? 

Loki doesn’t have time to wonder about those things. 

He stands up, Tony tucked securely in his arms. 

“Okay, Tony,” he says confidently. “Do you like nice ladies?”

“You mean nice boobs? Yeah!”

Loki sighs very, very deeply. 

*

First of all, it’s not like he stalks Darcy Lewis. The girl just always shows up when his not-brother half-aesir half-dumb-oaf is involved.   
And she actually laughs at his tricks. 

But that doesn’t really matter. What matters is that he knows exactly where she lives and that in the middle of the night she probably is still watching Netflix. He knows that she likes children and puppies and to eat a lot. Conclusion? She will be perfect for a temporary ally and a nanny for the young Avengers. 

He shows up, materializing in the middle of her living room, between the table and the TV. 

She screams shortly, jumps very high and then manages to somehow get behind the couch and save bowl of popcorn at the same time. 

“Loki!” She says after a while, perking shyly at him. “And… Did you kidnapped a kid!?” 

“Yeah!” Little Tony says before Loki can do anything. Darcy throws a popcorn at him. 

“I am not a super hero little kid but I am gonna save you! You hear me there? I will throw stuff at him until he lets you go!” 

Darcy throws another popcorn and this time it hits Loki in the head. He sighs again. At least Tony is laughing, not crying.

“Take care of him until I return,” he says, his tone serious. “Don’t call police. Don’t call S.H.I.E.L.D. In fact, don’t call anyone, just take care of him and the others I’ll bring. I’ll be back as soon as possible.” 

“Wait! Wait!” Darcy stands up, forgets about her couch-shield and openly stares at him. “What did you do?” 

But Loki has already put Little Tony on the table and is teleporting himself away. 

Darcy stares at Tony for a good long while and Tony stares back, before any of them does anything. 

Then, it’s simple. 

“Hi, kiddo. I’m Darcy. What’s your name?” Darcy asks, walking up to the kid and bending over him, to be on the same level. 

“Tony Stark,” he says, confident like the real one and then he grabs her boob. 

 

*

He isn’t surprised that he finds Natasha in some old house, with a still smoking gun and kneeling next to a dead body.   
He knows he had to find them from the youngest to the oldest and that he doesn’t have much time. 

What shock him is how calm Natasha is. He’s almost not sure if he should come closer. The mortal’s weapon won’t do much damage against a god but there’s something strange about this child. Something dark – much darker than what was in Loki, when he was young – and it makes his magic wary. 

“Natasha?” He asks, not wanting to startle the little girl. How old is she? Surely not that much older than Stark. She’s eight? Eleven? 

And she already killed someone. 

She hears him, but she doesn’t move. Doesn’t put the gun down. And now Loki sees her hands trembling. 

Slowly, he begins to approach her and with each his step she begins to shake more and more. 

“It’s okay,” he finds himself saying. “I came here to collect you. You passed your tests.” 

He doesn’t know why, he just says it. He’s a God of Lies, he’s good at improvisation. And he really doesn’t want to knock her out if she sees him as an enemy. 

He’s only few steps away when she raises a gun – and to his horror, the barrel of the gun is directed toward her temple. 

“I can’t do it, I can’t do it,” she sobs in Russian, she’s crying. 

Her finger moves but Loki is moving faster, high on adrenaline. He grabs her, vanishes the gun and lifts her up. 

“I’ve got you,” he says loudly. “I’ve got you Natasha, it’s all right.” 

His eyes are wide with horror, when he hugs her closely. He looks at the body, at the red hairs of a beautiful woman and suddenly he realizes what happened. 

He closes his eyes, hugs her even tighter and lets her cry. Allows her to mourn her mother. 

*

He’s back at Darcy’s about an hour later. 

Natasha isn’t crying anymore, but she still holds tightly to him. Her face is calm, collected, but he knows it’s only a mask that she put on.   
He looks around the apartment and soon finds Darcy and Tony in the kitchen. 

They’re making cookies. 

Tony is all smiles and shines and so is Darcy.

They’re so into their fun that they don’t see him yet. 

“Darcy,” he says, and she’s facing him in a second. 

She aims a spoon with dough at him. 

“Explain!” She demands and Loki shakes his head, trying to gently put Natasha on the floor. 

“Later, I have things to do now,” he says to Darcy. Then, he takes Natasha’s hands and tries to push her off of him. 

“Please,” she mutters quietly in Russian. 

And Loki wants to stay, to comfort her and put her to sleep. To make sure she won’t have nightmares today. But he doesn’t have time. 

“It’s okay,” he says to her, and kisses her forehead. “Darcy is your handler now. She’s nice. She and Tony are making cookies and I want you to help them, okay? That’s your next assignment. And I want you to listen to Darcy and make sure she and Tony stay out of trouble. Understood?” 

She goes still against him, tenses. But it only takes a few second for her to nod. 

“Understood.” 

And she lets go of his armor. 

In the kitchen, Darcy and Tony are silent, watching the little read headed girl, covered in blood. 

She watches them too, when Loki is gone. Her eyes are wet but she’s determined now. She looks at them and asses. 

Dracy comes closer, with worried expression on her face. 

“Natasha Romanoff?” 

Natasha nods sharply. 

"Let's get you a bath." 

* 

Burce is the easy one, Loki figures. It’s simple to snatch him from under the table, get rid of his yelling father and tuck him in the safety of his cape. 

It’s somewhat comforting that the kid can’t Hulk out. 

“Who a-are you?” Eleven years old Bruce asks. “Wh-ere is my father?”

“Loki,” he says quickly. “I’m going to take care of you from now on. Your father won’t hit you again. I promise.” 

It’s a bad promise, it’s a lie. He doesn’t know if the Avengers will have memories of this, if their future will be affected by his actions… But what he does know is that this kid has been beaten by his father and is bruised and bleeding and crying. 

“Are you a hero?” Bruce ask, and Loki for a while, has no idea what to say. His silver tongue is stuck and he just blinks at Bruce. 

“No,” he says and Bruce is wary now. “No, I’m not the hero. I’m just making the right thing.” 

And the knowledge surprises him. The feeling of doing something right and being aware of it is weird. Strange. Unfamiliar.   
But somehow, he enjoys it. 

“I’m going to take you from here to a nice lady that will take care of you for a while for me, all right?” He asks, because somehow, he doesn’t want to decide for this kids. He wants them feel like they have a choice. 

And Bruce thinks for a while, then nods. 

He’s still sobbing form time to time, he’s still in pain but there isn’t so much fear in his eyes anymore. 

“But first we’re going to find a doctor and heal you,” he says as they vanish. 

*

It takes another hour, three knocked out nurses, one crying-and-panicking crisis to overcome and one amnesiac doctor until they land in Darcy’s apartment. 

Bruce is half-asleep, covered in his green cape. Loki holds him for a while. 

Tony and Natasha are eating cookies in the kitchen – they don’t see him, can’t see him where he’s standing. 

Natasha looks mildly interested but Loki thinks that’s all right. She went through a lot and clearly, Tony is perfect at distracting her. He talks about jet-packs and ninjas and super sonic screwdrivers –whatever those are. Maybe some of his future inventions. 

Darcy is coming out from the bathroom and when she sees him, with another little kid in his arms, she only sighs. 

He doesn’t move as she comes closer. 

“Bruce?” She ask, when she sees the dark ruffled hairs and a lot of bandages. “Is he okay?” 

Bruce looks at her but his eyes are glassy and he yawns. Loki smiles at this, not even noticing how out of character it would appear. But Darcy is smiling softly too. 

“You should leave him your cape,” she says. 

“I know,” he mutters back, not wanting to wake the boy. He pulls out his cape, covers Bruce in it and then lets Darcy take him. 

“Loki?” Bruce asks sleepily. Loki smiles at him and gently ruffles his hair. 

“Sleep now, Bruce. I’ll be back soon. I promise.” 

At least that promise he can keep. 

“Darcy will take care of you.” 

Loki is gone, when Bruce looks at Darcy with question in his puffy eyes. 

“Sure I will! I’m the best nanny in the world!”

*

Clint is next. 

And it takes time to find him in the chaos of the circus. There are animals and clowns and Loki needs to use invisible spell to be able to freely move around. 

He sees a lot of things, and searched almost all of the damned place, before he finds Clint. 

He’s ten years old. 

Loki has no idea what his worst memory is. Honestly, he thought Clint would be last – that he would be sent back to the time when Loki possessed his mind. 

But no. 

Loki finds ten year old boy between wooden boxes next to the cages with wild animals. It smells terribly there. But Loki wouldn’t be bothered by it. 

It’s something about Clint – Loki realizes, as he watches the boy. 

He sits there, one hand clenched on a box and the other, covering his mouth. He’s having a panic attack, his chest falling and rising rapidly. But he’s doing it all silently. 

Loki lifts the spell and comes closer. 

“Clint,” he says gently. 

The boy doesn’t react. He’s still bend over, breathing faster and faster. 

“Clint, calm down,” Loki says again, louder this time. 

Then, he sucks air in as he hisses. 

His Hawk was deaf. But…? Surely it couldn’t happen when he was so young, right? Surely, it was caused by some sort of an explosion when he was an agent, not a beaten up kid. 

But then Loki looks closer and he sees blood in Clint ears. 

He curses, takes a few moments to collect himself and then, tires to catch Clint’s attention. 

He touches him gently, but the reaction is fast – his Hawk flinches hard, scrambles backward and looks at him with terrified, wide eyes. 

And those eyes will do marvelous things in the future, Loki knows. And maybe that’s why it’s so heartbreaking to look at them now.   
Loki lifts his hands up, then kneels next to the boy. 

And let him have it, he things. If Clint will remember him, kneeling between the boxes, in the mud. Fuck, Hawk can have it all, Loki doesn’t cares anymore. 

What he cares about is a ten years old boy who just lost his hearing. 

“Come here,” Loki mouths and Clint looks at him and then there’s more tears and sobbing. He shakes his head, then grabs his ears and began to shake. 

Loki comes closer instead. He takes the boy in his arms and brings him to his chest. 

Cling isn’t trying to pull back, but he isn’t grabbing him either. He just lest Loki lift him and hold him, as he tries to curl into a ball. Take as little space as he can. 

For the first time, Loki is conflicted. 

He could heal his Hawk. He could. But should he? 

Odin knows how much he wants to do that right now. And how much he wants to kill whoever did this to Clint. 

But it’s not the time for that. 

*

“Natasha!” He calls as he appears in the living room again. 

Tony and Bruce aren’t there, but Natasha is still in the kitchen. When she sees him, with a kid in his arms, she approaches slowly.

“You have new assignment,” he says. “It’s very, very important.” 

She comes closer and Loki crouches, making sure she can see Clint. When she does, she stops and looks at the boy curiously. And if Loki isn’t mistaken, there’s something soft in her eyes. 

She sees the blood, and the bruises and she feels that there’s something wrong with that boy. 

Loki then puts Clint on the couch, lets him curl and squeeze into the corner. 

“I need you to take care of him, Natasha,” he says. “He was beaten and he can’t hear anymore.” 

She nods at him, then 

“Understood.” 

“Where’s Darcy?” He asks, looking around the apartment. 

“She’s putting Tony to sleep. Good luck with that.” And she smiles shyly at him. It’s close to nothing but yet it is something. 

Loki smiles back. 

“Please tell her about Clint. I promise soon everything be all right, but you need to take care of this one. He needs you right now more than anything else.” 

And she nods again. 

Second later, where Loki isn’t here anymore, Natasha approaches the couch. She grabs Darcy’s blanket and carefully covers Clint. 

*   
It is almost too much, when its Thor’s turn. 

Loki finds himself back in Asgard, in his chambers. And it’s a blessing that he thought about invisible spell before searching for another kid.   
His mother is there, in his chambers. The light are dim, and Thor… 

Thor is sitting at his bed, crying helplessly. 

Loki knows what this is all about and for a moment, anger rises in him. 

They are both twelve, and Loki is almost dead. Because of Thor. Because of his stupid oaf brother. 

But somehow his anger is quickly fading, as he realizes, with shock, that this is Thor’s worst memory. The first and only time he hurt Loki so badly. 

And Loki’s mind prompts a thought, that afterwards, after Loki got better, Thor never left his side and became more protective of him. 

“Loki!?” His mother says, and automatically, he looks at the bed. But young Loki is still pale and dying. Then, he realizes.

“Fuck,” he mutters, but his mother is already standing, looking at him with disbelief. “No?” He tires, but his mother knows better, she always does. 

“Loki? How? What happened?” She approaches and Thor is right behind him, shocked and hopeful at the same time. 

Loki swears inwardly. He has to act. 

“You won’t remember anything,” he says softly and magic rushes through him. 

His mother tries to counter it, but fails and her legs go limp. Her eyes closes and Loki only by miracle manages to catch her before she hits the ground. He looks at Thor and before the kid can do anything or yell for guards, Loki is spelling him to sleep as well. 

He sighs, when everything calms down. Then he looks at his younger self and fuck. 

Young Loki is staring at him too. But the dark eyes are unfocussed so hopefully, hopefully he sees only dark-green figure. Hopefully he won’t remember. 

Loki leaves Asgard with Thor in his arms and a dreadful feeling that something in the timeline is terribly, terribly wrong. And that it is his fault. 

*   
“Tony and Bruce are asleep in by bedroom,” Darcy says quietly. “Clint and Natasha are sleeping on the couch and Thor is on my armchair. I don’t think I have space for much more, Lokes.” 

“It’s five out of seven,” he says. “There were seven of them in the Tower when the spell hit.” 

“Your spell?” Dracy asks, rising one eyebrow at him. It’s obvious that she already knows the answer, but for some reason, she wants to hear it.

“Yes.” He says, suspicious of her. 

“Are you regretting it already?” 

It catches him unprepared and for a moment, he wants to deny. He wants to show his pride and assure her that he does nothing by mistake or accident. But this is Darcy. Darcy that doesn’t call S.H.I.E.L.D. or anyone at all but instead helps him without hesitation. Darcy, that laughs at his tricks.

But this trick? They are not going to laugh at it, and Loki knows that, so he says: 

“Yes.” 

“Good.” She says instantly. “Go find the rest.” 

And Loki goes. 

* 

“Who are you?” Steve Rogers asks, weakly, but Loki guesses that a tall guy in black and green leather, that shows in the middle of a crappy room is worth some effort. 

Steve is laying on the floor and he looks like he’s already dead. His lips are dry, he’s skinny, skinnier than Loki things is healthy and he’s so pale it worries even the trickster. He doesn’t know how the spell will act if one of Avengers dies. 

“I’m no one,” he lies, and he knows Steve senses it. “But I’m here to help you.” 

Loki kneels next to the future Captain America and places his hand on his forehead. 

Fuck time travels. Fuck rules. 

Loki is a God of Chaos, he can do what he wants.

And right now, he wants to give this kid some strength. A chance at surviving this. 

Magic is forming in his hand and slowly, color is returning to Steve’s face. 

“It’s all right,” he says, when blue eyes meet his own. “I’m going to take care of everything. You might rest Rogers.” 

Rogers smiles at him, really, genuinely smiles and Loki can’t hold his own smile back. 

“Thank you, angel.” 

And then, Steve falls asleep. 

Good. He’s already on the floor, he can sleep on Darcy’s carpet. 

And if James Barnes is watching him through the window, the subtle, green glow of his magic, Loki doesn’t see him.

* 

There’s something wrong when he travels again. Something is changed. 

Loki can’t quite place it, but the feeling, the feeling at the back of his mind is serious. Something happened. Loki did something, changed something, that shouldn’t be changed. 

And he knows, when he breaks the spell, that things are going to be different. He’s almost too afraid to finish it. 

But he has one more kid to find. 

He doesn’t know who that might be – all the Avengers are already at Darcy’s place. So he hopes that’s maybe Pepper or Happy. How bad their childhood memories can be? Dead goldfish? Lost in the mall? 

But then Loki finds himself in a ruined building. 

It’s easy to figure out that a bomb did this. But who’s memory is this? 

Loki tries to focus, to find energy source somewhere in this ruin. Maybe a kid is trapped under the stones? Maybe it’s war? 

Loki goes to another room and he sees them. 

Two kids under the bed. Two, not one. 

And a bomb. 

Stark Industries' bomb.

The kids are watching it, crying. Waiting for it to kill them. 

Loki takes a step back. Wary of the bomb and of the child it might kill. He doesn’t want them dead. He wants to save them. 

The boy – Loki doesn’t know his name – notices him and he shakes his sister. He points at him and whispers something Loki doesn’t catch. But then, they’re both staring at him. So Loki does what he can, and slowly, slowly approaches them. 

The doesn’t go near the bomb, all the time watching it with the corners of his eyes. If it goes off, he’ll have enough time to spell a shield to protect himself and the children. But this is a bad alternative – he doesn’t want them to see the explosion. Doesn’t want to interfere with the past more than he did already. 

“I’m going to help you,” he says in AllSpeak. “You don’t have to be afraid anymore. I’m going to make sure you’re safe.” 

And he pulls them carefully from under the bed. First, the girl. Then, the boy. 

They cannot be older than ten and Loki has a feeling that it shouldn’t be like that. The spell hit only seven people. How could he save eight? What would happen if he brings eight kids? But who should he leave here? The boy? The girl? 

Loki looks at them again – at their exhausted eyes, purple bags under them. At their dirty faces and at their desperation. 

He’s the God of Chaos, he can do what he wants. Fuck the consequences. He’ll deal with them later. 

The bomb starts goes off. 

But Loki isn’t there anymore, and neither are the kids. 

* 

“The twins?” Darcy looks at the last two Loki has brought. “But…how?” 

Loki shrugs. 

“Magic.”

Darcy is looking at him funny. As if he did something impossible there. But he doesn’t have time for this, now that all the children are here, he can finally break the spell. 

Green magic fills the room and then, it’s over. 

Loki feels like fainting. 

But he’s a God of Lies and Chaos, if he faints he’s going to faint in his own bed. 

So with the rest of his magic, he disappears again, leaving Darcy to deal with everything else. 

* 

“Let’s make it clear,” Steve says, using his Captain America tone. “We are all remembering him, right?” 

The rest of the Avengers, Winter Soldier and Twins nod.

“I don’t understand, how,” Tony says, looking at Wanda and Pietro. The two of them sits on one seat, Wanda on Pietro’s lap. She didn’t left him even for one second since she saw him, all well and definitely not dead. 

“But you remember him, right?” Clint says, and honestly, he should be the one worried the most, but somehow, he can’t see Loki in the same light anymore. He should be panicking. “I knew, I could swear to you that Loki was the one who found me at the circus…” 

“And he was the one who saved us from the bomb,” Pietro interrupts and Cling glares at him. But there’s fondness in his eyes and Pietro grins. 

“He stopped me when I tried to kill myself,” Natasha says and there’s silence following her statement. 

“And he saved Steve too,” it’s Bucky. He doesn’t seem sure about his memories, but yet, his mind somehow remembers the green glow and strange figure when he was out of their house, calling for the doctors.

He was about to call them and say that Steve was dead.

“Is there a chance he just fucked with our memories?” Tony asks, desperate for explanation other than this one. 

“Nope,” Darcy says, playful smile on her face. “And I have pictures of you all. You were so cute when you slept!”


End file.
